William Lukens Elkins

Elkins was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on May 2, 1832, the seventh child and youngest son to George Elkins and Susanne (née Howell) Elkins. His father was a pioneer in paper manufacturing in the United States. In 1840, his family returned to Philadelphia, where William continued his education in the local schools. His family was a prominent family in colonial-era Philadelphia, with roots from England. ==Career==

He started his business career working as a clerk at a grocery store in Philadelphia. He entered the lumber business but did not have success. In 1852, he entered the produce business in New York and had modest success. In 1853, he returned to Philadelphia and formed a partnership with Peter Sayboldt to found the produce company Sayboldt & Elkins. Elkins recognized the potential for the usages of oil being pumped from the oilfields of Northwestern Pennsylvania and became a pioneer in the refining of crude oil. In Philadelphia he founded Monument Oil Works that built a primitive oil refinery which he constantly modernized and expanded into other locations. Elkins founded the United Gas Improvement Company which implemented gas works in Philadelphia and 60 U.S. cities. He was a member of the board of directors of 24 companies. Elkins held sizeable financial positions in American Tobacco Company and International Mercantile Marine Co. Elkins was also involved in real estate and partnered with Widener to purchase large tracts of land in North Philadelphia and build several thousand houses for sale. He served on the Philadelphia City Council for one year in 1876 and served as aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel to Governor John F. Hartranft. He served as commissioner to represent Philadelphia at the International Expositions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1900. ==Elkins estate==

In 1898, Elkins built a grand 45-room mansion named Elstowe Manor for himself and a mansion named Chelten House for his son on the 42-acre Elkins Estate in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Both mansions were designed by Horace Trumbauer. Elkins was an art collector and instituted a $5,000 prize for "the most meritorious" painting exhibited by an American artist at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1900, he published a catalogue of his personal art collections which contained 132 paintings. ==Personal life==

In 1858, William Elkins married Maria Louise Broomall, with whom he had two daughters and two sons: • Ida Ameila Elkins (1859–1904), who married Sidney Frederick Tyler (1850–1935), bearing no children. • Eleanor Elkins (1861–1937), who married George Dunton Widener, with whom she had three children, and lost her husband and elder son, Harry, in the April 15, 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic. Descendants Through his son George, he was the grandfather of four grandchildren. They included Stella Elkins, who married George F. Tyler and founded the Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art. Another granddaughter, Louise Elkins, married Wharton Sinkler, a descendant of the William Penn and Joseph Wharton families. A grandson, William McIntire Elkins, was a book collector whose collection of early Americana is held at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Through his son William, he was the grandfather of two grandchildren: Felton Broomall Elkins, a playwright and artist, and Marie Louise Broomall Elkins, who married three times and was a Broadway producer. ==Citations==